FORESTRY COMMISSION. 107 



tinue to decline. The welfare of Micliisan demands that steps be taken 

 to retrieve these losses. When settlers began to move into the terri- 

 tory and purchase the wild land of the government, about three-quar- 

 ters of a century ago, nearly all of its acres were covered with magnifi- 

 cent forests. It was found, as they were cleared away, that the soil was 

 A-ery fertile and productive, so that "when tickled with the hoe it 

 laughed with the luuvest." Here and there were a few small prairies, 

 mostly in the southwestern part of the State, but they were mere oases 

 in a vast wilderness. Clearing the land of trees was the first hard 

 woi'k. Too much of it was cleared. As a rule, the highest lands were 

 cleared fiist, the more fertile intervals along the streams being left 

 for the final work of denudation. For many years, when a larger pro- 

 portion of the acreage was covered with forests, there were no com- 

 plaints of the ■\\iuter killing of wheat. Half a century ago agriculture 

 Avas prosperous in Michigan, and good farms rose in value to a hundred 

 dollars an acre and over. As late as 1S7!) AVashtenaA\' county was one 

 of the few counties of the State composing the old Northwest, the value 

 of the agricultural products of which amounted to over live million 

 dollars. The hardwood timber on the land became valuable. Lumber- 

 men bought the slnmpage, or even the land itself, stripped the tim- 

 ber, and where they owned the land, sold it for what it would bring. 

 The railroads that commenced traversing every southern county, even 

 almost every town, some forty years ago, made marketable every tree 

 that would produce good firewood or lumber, and the work of denuda- 

 tion went on rapidly. Xot enough of the forests was left to alford 

 windbreaks, shelter and protection for the arable land. It can now be 

 seen by any investigator of census statistics that from the time this 

 work of forest destruction Avas completed there has been a steady de- 

 crease in the rural population of what was once the fairest and most 

 productive portion of southern Michigan, and that decline has been 

 swifter from 1900 to 1904: than at any other period of our history. 

 Cause and effect haA'e neA^er been more apparent and traceable. 



From the viewpoint of the present, no one will dispute the statement 

 that ^lichigan has been prodigal and wasteful of her natural Avealth of 

 timber. This has become more noticeable during the past decade than 

 ■ever before, because the forest area has been so reduced that every acre 

 denuded of its trees has changed the appearance of the landscape, until, 

 finally, it has changed in many localities the outlook from beauty to 

 barrenness when the fields are wind-swept in winter and spring, or when 

 parched by droughts in the summer. 



That the denudation of our forests has had some effect on climate, 

 making crops more uncertain, and has greatly changed the character of 

 our streams, increasing the volume of storm Avater flow, instead of 

 holding it back and giAing a more even A'olume through a longer period, 

 are facts that are well established. The nakedness of a landscape, bar- 

 ren of trees, is to some extent a sentimental and aesthetic considera- 

 tion, but should not be entirely overlooked. Xot only the beauty and 

 attractiveness of the State are increased, but the value of all the land 

 Avill be enhanced by intelligent and systematic attention to forestry. 



While Avhat seems to be an incidental advantage, the increase of the 

 productiveness of the arable land, with its consequent ability to sup- 



